MIGRATION INTO SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA SPARKS DEMANDS FOR THEIR REMOVAL FROM SHELL FISHERS. BUT U.S.
OFFICIALS SAY THAT COULD BREAK PROTECTION LAW.

By

Gary Polakovic & Hilary
E. MacGregor

Los Angeles Times
September 9, 1998

DATELINE: SANTA BARBARA

For the first time in decades, sea otters are pressing hard into Southern
California, attempting to recolonize a sliver of coastline that their ancestors
roamed before being hunted to the brink of extinction.

But with their arrival at Cojo Bay, just east of Point Conception, these
migrants have swum smack into a bitter debate about fishing rights and
wildlife protection along the California coast.

Their presence puts them in direct conflict with commercial shell fishers
and a federal law banning sea otters from the Mexico border to Point Conception.

The only exception was a small colony of sea otters set up on San Nicolas
Island off the Ventura County coast about a decade ago. That experiment,
fishers and government officials agree, has been an abject failure.

Scientists are troubled too. They want more otters, but are concerned
that the animals are expanding into new territory at a time when their
total numbers along the California coast are declining.

Diseases are ravaging otters on an unprecedented scale, scientists say,
raising questions about their overall health and pollution of their coastal
habitat.

Taken together, those developments are forcing stakeholders in the debate
to conclude that it may be time for an overhaul of otter management programs
along the California coast.

Shell fishers--who compete with otters for prized sea urchins, lobsters
and crabs--consider the animals ravenous rivals and a threat to their economic
survival.

If otters establish a beachhead near Santa Barbara, they say, it will
only be a matter of time before they advance along the rest of the Southern
California coast.

Each day, a 50-pound sea otter eats an average of 17 pounds of crabs,
turban snails, abalone and nearly anything else that wiggles on the ocean
bottom.

"The public only sees them on the surface floating, and they look like
teddy bears, but they eat like elephants and they have a big impact on
other life forms," said Steve Rebuck, an abalone diver and consultant to
the California Abalone Assn.

Fishers demand that federal wildlife authorities honor their legal commitment
to remove the animals--24 otters lingered at Cojo Bay through summer--immediately.
They say otters have no business moving so far south, and federal law supports
that position.

Under a compromise to balance otter recovery with fishing rights, Congress
in 1986 passed a law that forbids sea otters in Southern California, save
for the San Nicolas colony.

Otters were allowed to roam unfettered north of Point Conception; shell
fishers got exclusive rights to the waters to the south. Any sea otters
found in the "management zone" were to be immediately captured and removed,
according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

But the federal agency has resisted eviction of the interlopers from
Cojo Bay. Federal biologists insist that relocating them would harm the
species, and that would conflict with another federal law, the Endangered
Species Act. In 1977, southern sea otters, found off the California coast,
were designated a species threatened with extinction.

Carl Benz, a federal biologist in Ventura, estimates that about two
of every 30 otters would perish during relocation, unacceptably high mortality
for a protected species. Besides, even if the otters were moved to the
Morro Bay area, from which they are believed to have migrated, many would
probably swim back to Cojo Bay, Benz said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service held public meetings last month in
Santa Barbara and Monterey seeking advice on how to proceed. Raucous crowds
of as many as 100 fishers attended.

"It's a Catch-22 situation. There are no easy answers," said Rep. Elton
Gallegly (R-Simi Valley). "We're very sensitive to the natural environment,
but we're sensitive to the family that depends on fishing too."

Losing a Deadly Duel With Nature

At the moment, however, conflict with humans is the least of the sea
otters' problems. The species is caught in a deadly duel with nature. The
otters are losing.

Odd foraging habits, new patterns of disease and toxic pollution raise
questions about the health of the coastal environment.

Scientists wonder if the otters are seeking new territory as part of
a normal growth spurt or if they are fleeing unhealthy environments.

In the last three years, the number of sea otters along the California
coast fell 11%, to 2,114. It is the most significant die-off since detailed
counts began in 1982, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The offshore otter population established on San Nicolas Island is faring
even worse. As part of the compromise that banned sea otters from Southern
California, 139 animals were transplanted from the mainland coast to the
island between 1987 and 1990 to establish a colony to ensure that otters
could survive a major oil spill.

Yet just 16 otters remain at the island. About half swam back to Monterey,
some died of various causes and the rest are unaccounted for. The program
is widely criticized as a failure.

In the first seven months of this year, 153 dead otters were identified
up and down the coast, equal to the number of carcasses found in all of
1997, said Jim Curland, science director for Monterey-based Friends of
the Sea Otter.

David Jessup, senior wildlife veterinarian for the California Department
of Fish and Game, said disease has accounted for 40% of all deaths in recent
years.

Sand crabs pass worms that shred otter innards. And a brain-destroying
parasite, possibly from cat feces washed from suburbs to the ocean, is
taking a heavy toll too, Jessup said.

"It's unprecedented in California," he said. "It's unprecedented in
any wild carnivore species. It's unprecedented in a marine mammal species.
It's a very unusual pattern of mortality. You just don't see wild carnivores
dying of infectious diseases. There is something inherently wrong with
the health of sea otters."

The animals' plight is becoming so dire that at the current rate of
population decline, the Fish and Wildlife Service in three years will be
forced to again declare the species in danger of extinction, Benz said.

Only a few years ago, southern sea otters were faring so well that the
agency was preparing to remove them from the endangered species list by
1999.

At its August meeting, the state Fish and Game Commission decided to
begin holding hearings in December to review long-term otter management
strategies to better balance species recovery and fishing rights.

Lobsterman Decries 'Cuteness Factor'

That otters are on the move in California seems certain. After years
of absence, several have been spotted in San Francisco Bay. Strays have
been reported as far south as San Diego, including one off the Ventura
coast last month.

But the group of 100 males that arrived at Cojo Bay this spring probably
signals a significant thrust into new territory.

Scientists estimate that southern sea otters once numbered 20,000 along
the California coast, but they were relentlessly hunted in the 18th and
19th centuries.

By 1938, just 300 remained, hidden by steep cliffs in coves off Big
Sur. Their numbers rebounded after hunting of them was banned, grew until
the mid-1970s, dipped again largely because of deaths in fishing nets,
and gained from 1982 to their peak of 2,377 in 1995.

Tensions between fishers on the one hand and environmentalists and the
Fish and Wildlife Service on the other have been simmering since otters
were transplanted to San Nicolas Island a decade ago.

When otters showed up in forbidden waters near Santa Barbara this year,
fishers in Ventura and Santa Barbara sounded the alarm.

"When they translocated otters , it made about as much sense as translocating
locusts into the wheat field," said Jim Colomy, a lobsterman who often
goes out of Ventura. "But they were cute, so we put up with it. If they
weren't cute, no one would stand for it. You can't manage resources on
the cuteness factor."

Fishers complain that sea otters have a competitive advantage. They
are not subject to fishing seasons or catch limits and are in the water
around the clock.

Environmentalists contend that otters have become a scapegoat for overfishing
that threatens marine stocks. True, the otters are voracious, but environmentalists
say they managed to coexist with shellfish for centuries before humans
arrived.

"It's easy to put the blame on sea otters. Sea otters do have an effect
on these invertebrate animals, but the question is how much damage are
24 animals at Cojo Bay going to do compared to all the human damage to
fisheries," Curland said.

Furthermore, recent problems with the animals demonstrate that the 12-year-old
otter-management agreement is obsolete and needs to be revamped, environmentalists
say. And as far as the otters are concerned, they ignore the agreement
entirely.

"Sea otters don't read signs. They don't see a visible line in the water
at Point Conception. They are just doing what comes naturally to them,"
Curland said.

Link
to Reuters release on the effects of Tributyl tin containing bottom paints
on marine life